Professional Wrestling

[the duder]

Totally makes sense to wait till next Monday for the Shake-Up. WWE ain't gonna beat the NCAA championship. Mail it in, go through the motions and reset for the Shake-Up. And, I am 100% on board with this iteration of Sami Zayn. Holy hell was this a fun promo:

[xfocalinx]

So. Exhausted.
Tuesday: Packed up the car full of stuff to sell at wrestlecon.
Wednesday Morning: left for the week, arrived in NJ for Pizza Party wrestling, after the show, picked up our friend who was selling merch and then we slept at Tony Mamaluke's house in Brooklyn.
Thursday: Unloaded all the stuff for the con downtown NYC. Did a lot of site seeing, headed back to Mamaluke's and crashed for the night.
Friday: Convention day 1. We had to take a train down, which meant leaving at 7 AM (ugh) but the con was fun! Con ended at 4 pm. Did a lot of running around, then Blackcraft wrestling at Midnight.. which was UGH. such a shame, I never want to see a company put on a bad show, let alone one I'm associated with. The show ended at 2:45 AM, we got to Mamaluke's at 4:30, went to bed at 5 AM..woke up at 7 to head down to NYC for the con.
Sat: Convention day 2. Very tired at this point. Con ended at 4, my buddy and I ended up skipping another show we were planning on attending and went back to Mamalukes and fell asleep at 8 PM.
Sun: Convention 1 mile away from Metlife had to head out at 9 AM, unloaded, then ran back to Brooklyn to pick up a WM ticket from craigslist, Picked up the tickets, zoomed back to the con, loaded up at 1pm, headed to Metlife. Watched mania (also I slept on my glasses so I couldn't see,bummer!) Got out of the parking lot around 1 AM, picked up our buddy in Manhattan around 2 AM, zoomed home. Got home at 9AM, went to work at 10 AM.

Thankfully, I've got Tues-Thurs off, i'm still recovering, but MAN AM I EXHAUSTED.

[the duder]

Very interesting; makes me wonder if this is at all connected to Sasha's flaking out and general disillusionment (as evidenced by her tweets) with the WWE...

[Swykk]

Very interesting; makes me wonder if this is at all connected to Sasha's flaking out and general disillusionment (as evidenced by her tweets) with the WWE...

Yeah, it supports what I’ve been saying for a long time. He is unstable, unreasonable, and needs to retire. Becky actually tweeted that she guesses “new Charlotte” is her new contender and that it seems like WWE has a type. I’ve been saying for years Vince loves busty blondes and big dumb guys.

Yes, he gave into the fans at Mania but the cost will likely be the usual Guy/Girl Vince actually likes gets a lot of shots in until the PPV where the guy/girl fans like barely gets the win, cheapening their title run. As I mentioned before, we also got a heel Sami Zayn that says a lot of shit that sounds like petulant Vince with a full depends.

I got jumped a bit on wrestling Twitter the other day because I supported the fans in NY and blamed Vince for poor creative writing on the post Mania RAW.

I hope those idiots enjoy the taste of that crow they’re eating today.

[Piko]

WWE might be the worst job in the world. Vince needs to go.

[Space Suicide]

Remove nWo and just have him talking about his own changes and work. Also remove Ric Flair and put in Vincent K. McMahon.

He says it himself.

[Swykk]

Not surprising. Her and Bayley have been getting treated like shit for a long time

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...it-wwe-653044/

[henryeatscereal]

Well, i'm glad people like Sasha, Ambrose and The Revival see the bigger picture...

But not only them; CM Punk, Tye Dillinger, Austin Aries and even Neville saw the writing on the wall.
Morale in that company must be so weird, they make loads of money but are basically slaves to a 70-year old madman.

They are going to keep losing talent as long as Vince is in charge, at first they didn't care for "small" talent, but losing guys like Ambrose and Punk did hurt them, they can't afford to lose Sasha...

[Piko]

It's crazy and amazing at the same time how everything seems to be falling apart there. I'm going to guess they're not going to release her. Sasha deserves better. A lot of people there deserve better. With Vince at the helm nothing will really actually change.

Horrible timing too with AEW around the corner. The next couple of years are going to be very interesting

[ltrandazzo]

Sasha and Bayley have had a hell of a crazy booking run this past year and so I'm of mixed opinions here. Bear with me.

On one hand - losing a title is part of the business, obviously. Sometimes, you drop it to someone you don't think is the right call, but you do it for the business. Sasha will always be the first ever women's tag team champ for WWE and that will never be taken away from her. You could argue that Boss n' Hug wasn't a pure tag team like the Revival, or the IIconics, or the New Age Outlaws, Road Warriors, etc. Dropping the titles to a team that has been a team ever since they were called up to the main roster makes sense. Sasha could arguably also be a challenger to Becky Lynch after her (hopefully) quick feud with Lacey Evans. Dropping the titles makes sense in that regard.

On the other hand - The Sasha/Bayley feud could have been incredible except that it didn't pay off AT ALL. It had a great slow build that even tied into both the Royal Rumble and the Women's Battle Royal at WM34 and, nah, nada, forget it, let's Dr. Shelby these two and kill it. What. The. Fuck. It's also weird that they went on an NXT and Smackdown tour saying they'd defend the titles on all brands because unless the Sky Pirates get called up next week, there's no way a heel team will do that. Another point of contention is the main roster title defense situation. Graves brought it up on the Fastlane buildup that Sasha loses her title the first time she defends it and even though they successfully defended against Nia and Tamina, they dropped them the next match, giving them a 1-1 record on defenses. It doesn't seem like there's a plan for a rematch between the two teams that could build up the IIconics a little more since Alexa squashed Bayley, so that's another thing to be upset about.

Sasha had a great showing against Rousey at the Rumble this year so she can definitely go on a consistently high level in singles and tag matches. I hope that this wakes up WWE to fix their booking situations and to quit under-utilizing their talent. I'm happy for the IIconics - they're fantastic heels who are great in the ring and on the mic, but they should be in a feud with one team while the other teams start to form and stick together to build up the division.

However, for Sasha, I think that if WWE continues to stoke this this will lead to the talent wanting to leave, unionize, join other promotions and give WWE a run for their money. The most recent SEC filings show that the company understands that their creative force revolves around Vince McMahon, and while he maintains majority ownership still and even though the company continues to rake in money, they've just experienced one of their better reviewed Wrestlemanias since 30 and 31. Sticking everything into the ground will not improve things and all of the Saudi and Fox money won't make them better.

[the duder]

However, for Sasha, I think that if WWE continues to stoke this this will lead to the talent wanting to leave, unionize, join other promotions and give WWE a run for their money. The most recent SEC filings show that the company understands that their creative force revolves around Vince McMahon, and while he maintains majority ownership still and even though the company continues to rake in money, they've just experienced one of their better reviewed Wrestlemanias since 30 and 31. Sticking everything into the ground will not improve things and all of the Saudi and Fox money won't make them better.

I mean, yeah the fans liked Mania, but I think there was a lot of the event that was a monumental clusterfuck. Reports of fans stranded in NJ because of a failure of WWE to adequately plan out how to transfer 80,000+ fans out of NJ at well after midnight on a Sunday. Lighting issues during AJ/Randy's match. WWE seems to have created a huge revenue maker alongside a toxic work environment during WrestleMania week. Think about the publicized accounts of talent ready to walkout - McAfee, Banks, Revival - due to the stress levels. It reeks of micromanagement/lack of distribution of leadership on top of poor communication. It seems more and more like the company needs a restructuring, from the top down.

Edit: Well would you look at that....

[Space Suicide]

I can’t wait till Michael Cole retires. I’ve hated him ever since he departed SD! And became the top announcer.

[onthewall2983]

Amazon Prime Video is selling the first season of The Dark Side Of The Ring for just 0.99, for what I'm assuming will be a brief time.

[xfocalinx]

Three shows this weekend, and I'm intentionally skipping two of them because I wouldn't be doing anything there but "hanging out".. It's really starting to get to me being on the sidelines, so I'm taking a semi-break from prowrestling.

[ltrandazzo]

BTW - regarding Sasha again - this picture sums it all up if you know your history. Much respect to her.

[ThinkIcouldburn]

WWE needs to stop changing people's names. Vince just killed War Raiders before they reached the ring.

[ltrandazzo]

God fucking damn it

[ltrandazzo]

They’re gonna call up Velveteen Dream and call him Max. Fucking hell.

[ThinkIcouldburn]

I love how the crowd is like, "Do we still chant "War"? No? What do we chant?"

[xfocalinx]

This raw feels like the "post mania" raw.

[ThinkIcouldburn]

Someone got fired over that Uso spoiler.

[ltrandazzo]

Um Alexa was a babyface in that Sami Moment of Bliss.

[Piko]

I gave up watching after the Viking experience. Went back and saw EC3 get buried.

[ThinkIcouldburn]

They broke up Sanity as well. Eric Young to Raw. I guess that's good since they were being used so well. Maybe Eric Young will actually get a match.

[Piko]

I don't think I've seen so many burials in one night... I'd like to think they have some sort of plan for Eric Young, Sanity, or Nikki Cross. But they probably don't. My main takeaway from what I watched is "RIP". After the "experience" I was done. I'm that baffled. Tried again and saw the EC3 burial. No going back after that shit.

Heard Zayn cut a really good promo. Missed it of course...

[henryeatscereal]

Ew, boring RAW (Excluding the Andrade/Balor match...)

- That "Viking Experience" name is so dumb, it actually offended me...
- Don't get it, Alexa is a heel one week, then another is a face
- I never liked EC3, but even i think it's shitty how they are treating him
- I'm not sold on that Zayn new gimmick, he is cutting great promos, but sound so forced, let's see how it goes...

[Piko]

Zayn is killing it. Saw his promo on YouTube. Second coming of Punk, almost. He could reach that level if they let him.

[Space Suicide]

Time to see THE VIKING EXPERIENCE guys!

So goddamn stupid.

[JustNoise]

Remove nWo and just have him talking about his own changes and work. Also remove Ric Flair and put in Vincent K. McMahon.

He says it himself.

The story goes in circles.

[ltrandazzo]

Here are all of your Raw moves in one convenient video -